LAX Resigned to Long Lines, Despite Cloud of Terrorism

Despite warnings by security experts that long lines at Los Angeles International Airport are vulnerable to a terrorist attack, airport officials have concluded that the staff cannot be added to significantly shorten queues in the next few years.

Rand Corp. recommended last fall that airlines and federal officials hire more people to speed travelers from sidewalks and terminal lobbies into the more secure gate areas as the quickest and cheapest way to protect LAX passengers.

But in documents obtained by The Times, the airport’s top official advised the City Council that a third more airline workers and screeners would be needed -- an increase that’s not feasible. And even if cash-strapped airlines could hire additional staff, there wouldn’t be enough ticket counter space for them, airport officials said.

But Rand insisted that the urgency of reducing lines at the world’s fifth-busiest airport remained.

“It’s still the recommended thing to do,” said Donald Stevens, a senior engineer at Rand and lead author of the Santa Monica-based research institute’s September study.

Long lines at airports are “the single greatest vulnerability that we have in the domestic U.S. at the moment,” said aviation consultant Billie Vincent, a former Federal Aviation Administration security chief.

The General Accounting Office released a report this week that said heightened screening procedures and truck-sized explosives-detection machines in airport lobbies -- added after 9/11 -- had created crowds that put passengers at risk.

“In the ‘70s, gangs in Europe entered airports and machine-gunned and killed people,” said Stephen Van Beek, policy director for Airports Council International-North America. “Terrorists know if they did that today, it would be highly publicized.”

The risk is acute at LAX, considered the state’s top terrorist target.

Lines will decrease about 50% at LAX by 2008, airport officials say, after installation of a new $400-million luggage system that will allow the screening machines to be moved out of the terminal lobbies. Los Angeles International is one of the few airports to receive federal funding for such a project.

LAX officials said that although they didn’t plan to implement some of Rand’s suggestions, dealing with the airport lines remained a top priority.

“We don’t disagree with what Rand said at all,” said Kim Day, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, which runs the city’s airports. “While we are not implementing exactly what they recommended, thanks to Rand we are focused on a direction that will indeed make this airport more safe and secure.”

Mayor James K. Hahn called for the Rand study last spring after the City Council threatened to hire a firm to conduct a security analysis of his $11-billion modernization plan for LAX.

Rand stands by its recommendation to reduce crowding outside the terminals and in the lobbies.

“Even if you use their numbers, it still comes out as the top recommendation,” Stevens said.

The wide-ranging report -- which considered the potential casualties from car bombs, mortars, snipers and surface-to-air missiles -- was the first public review of the airport’s vulnerabilities and the most cost-effective ways to fix them.

It found that passengers on sidewalks and in lobbies were at risk from car and luggage bombs. Rand urged the city to reduce crowds and to establish permanent checkpoints at LAX entrances to search vehicles for bombs.

The City Council asked airport officials to report how they planned to decrease lines and screen vehicles. In response, the airport agency quietly sent two letters to members of the council’s Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources Committee earlier this year.

Rand and some council members were unaware that the letters existed until informed by The Times earlier this week. In a five-page letter on airport crowds, LAX officials relied on statistics from an analysis by Leigh Fisher Associates, an airport queue specialist that conducted computer simulations of lines in each of the facility’s nine terminals.

The study found that during peak periods, an increase of 25% to 75% in airline ticket agents would be required, depending on the terminal, to reduce lines to a wait of one minute -- a level consultants considered optimal to reduce casualties in an attack. Average waits at ticket counters are now about 40 minutes during peak travel times.

Rand said that only 5% more airline employees were necessary to reduce lines to a target waiting time of five to seven minutes.

The Leigh Fisher study also concluded that the U.S. Transportation Security Administration would need 45% more baggage screeners and 25% more checkpoint screeners to reduce line waits to a minute. Wait times at screening checkpoints can stretch to an hour during busy periods.

Rand recommended adding lanes at security checkpoints, but did not specify how many more screeners would be needed.

Airport officials said the difference between their conclusion and Rand’s occurred because the think tank didn’t factor in the terminal layouts and frequency of passenger arrivals.

But Rand’s Stevens suggested that, rather than conducting computer simulations, airport officials should add a few more people and run some tests to see how much they reduce lines. He also said a one-minute wait was an unrealistic goal.

Rand and the airport agency, which have spent months trying to negotiate an ongoing contract, say they hope to work on the problem together this spring.

The airport wants to reduce lines in the short term by working with the airlines to install more self-service kiosks that would let passengers obtain boarding passes themselves. A recent study showed that about 23% of passengers checking in at LAX last year used the kiosks.

Airport officials are also building more screening lanes and plan to continue a program to bus arriving passengers to less crowded terminals to check in.

As for Rand’s call for permanent checkpoints at airport entrances to screen vehicles for bombs, airport agency chief Day said in a letter to council members that it would cost up to $8 million to build a such a checkpoint with 12 lanes and $39.5 million a year to operate it.

Such a facility would still not be big enough to efficiently screen cars unless screening times were kept below 10 seconds per vehicle, and it would gridlock streets around the airport, she wrote, causing passengers to miss flights.

Day concluded that “implementation of 100% vehicular screening cannot be accomplished in either the near term or for low cost.”

Rand said that it did not ask the airport to screen every vehicle and that it believes devices such as vehicle scales can be used to reduce screening times. Airport officials say they have asked Rand to advise them about technology that could be used at checkpoints.

The airport agency is designing a permanent 12-lane vehicle checkpoint, but won’t proceed with construction until the city decides whether it will build a controversial check-in center near the San Diego Freeway. That proposed facility is part of Hahn’s LAX plan and requires further study and council approval.

Airport officials note that they have already spent $141 million since 9/11 to fortify LAX. Ongoing projects include a $57-million reinforcement of perimeter fencing and a $42-million effort to expand a camera surveillance system.

Rand researchers also noted that the airport was the only one of the country’s 429 commercial facilities to approach it and ask for a public study of its security problems.

“Yeah, we may find LAX vulnerable,” Rand’s Stevens said. “But at least they’re forward-leaning. They’re doing things there -- they’re trying to fix that perimeter fence. You look at the perimeter fence around San Francisco and say, ‘Sheesh.’ ”